The White House is laying the groundwork for declaring a
national emergency that would let President Donald Trump build sections of a
wall along the US-Mexico border, possibly using funds from the Army Corps of
Engineers, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing two unnamed
sources.

According to a report, the plan called for building 315
miles (500 km) of border barrier by declaring an emergency and tapping a $13.9
billion Army Corps fund that was set aside for US disaster relief and
prevention projects.

Such a strategy, which Reuters could not immediately confirm
independently, would escalate a wall-funding standoff between Trump and
Democrats in Congress from a policy dispute to a test of presidential power and
likely trigger a legal challenge. Pushing the impasse into the courts could give
Trump an escape path from the political box he has put himself in by demanding
that any legislation to end a 20-day-old partial government shutdown include
$5.7 billion in funding for his wall, a demand that congressional Democrats
oppose.

The federal government partially shut down on Dec. 22 when
Trump and lawmakers failed to reach an agreement to fund several agencies whose
funding had expired for reasons unrelated to Trump`s wall.

US officials, said Trump had been briefed on the plan
involving the Army Corps while flying to the US southern border on Thursday. A
White House official denied Trump had been briefed on the plan. The Pentagon
declined to comment on the news reports.

“The News reports are totally false, bogus, but doesn`t
mean the president won`t talk to them at some point,” White House
spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. The Post, citing a congressional aide, said the
administration was specifically looking at using some of the $13.9 billion
included in a disaster spending bill passed by Congress last year that has been
allocated but not yet spent.

In the meantime, the first US military ground equipment has
been withdrawn from Syria, signaling the beginning of the drawdown ordered by
President Donald Trump, according to an administration official. “Some
cargo has already moved,” the official told CNN on Friday. Due to security
concerns, the official would not describe exactly what the cargo was or whether
it had been moved out by aircraft or ground vehicles.

The official also declined to say what part of Syria the
equipment was in. The announcement comes after Trump said that the US troops
would be withdrawing from Syria “over a period of time,” dismissing
the previously reported four-month exit plan.

But White House National Security Adviser John Bolton on
Sunday contradicted Trump`s decision, saying said that American forces would
remain in Syria until the last remnants of the Islamic State (IS) were defeated
and Turkey provided guarantees that it would not strike Kurdish forces allied
with the US.

He also acknowledged that pockets of the IS remained undefeated and that a quick US pullout could endanger US partners and allies in the region, as well as American forces themselves. Currently, there are more than 2,000 US soldiers deployed in Syria.

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